Looking For Answers

Today will be an exercise for you in critical thinking.  I am going to post some information for you to review on Operation Fast and Furious.  It will be from two previous posts on the subject.  The first post is sited in the post sited below.  I suggest reading these posts in order, and then making your deductions.

http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1648308601523670977#editor/target=post;postID=1595521757921552790

I know everyone is zeroing in on Eric Holder for his role in Fast and Furious.  However, I doubt seriously if any of the Congressmen who question him know enough to ask the right questions.  I think Eric Holder has shown his true racist colors now that he's bolstered by the most racist president in recent history.  I agree that he should be removed from office, but I think arriving at the right reasons will take more than the vitriol from the NRA and some of their supporters.  I am going to provide you with information that may cause you to dig deeper.

The focus, outside of Holder, has been on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.  The same type of media misinformation was put out about the Branch Davidian Compound standoff near Waco, Texas. The mis-information was parroted by the NRA, and, then Attorney General Janet Reno, was the target of much Congressional blustering and inquiry.  Based on my thirty plus years of experience with such things I can tell you that neither Attorney General Reno or Holder probably knew anything about either operation until things went to hell in a hand basket.  The sign offs on these operations are handled in most cases by a bevy of lesser players in the Justice Department.  The day of the raid, after Janet Reno was briefed, she pulled ATF out of the scene and replaced them with the FBI.  So, ATF didn't have much of a presence other than to man the road blocks and sit in the FBI negotiations and briefings.  The whole affair could probably have been over in a matter of a few days with little or no damage on either side, but nothing the field commanders suggested could be implemented in a timely fashion because of all the other people, with no knowledge of what to do or how to do it, who had to be consulted.

Let me give you some little known background information:  The Justice Department, and the FBI in particular, have been trying to get the primary enforcement designation over the laws that ATF enforces.  ATF is rarely given credit when major cases are solved.  The press routinely refers to them as other federal agents.  After 9/11/2001, the word went out that we were all going to be lumped into a mega enforcement group under the Justice Department know as Homeland Security.  ATF had been under the Treasury Department since its inception back in the 1930s.  I could have worked for two more years before my retirement became mandatory, but I chose to go at the earliest opportunity to avoid having to work for the Justice Department.  I would not be surprised if the real underlying purpose of Operation Fast and Furious was to embarrass ATF and have the FBI take the jurisdiction.  I can tell you that it is highly unlikely that anyone at the field level came up with the idea to cooperate with Mexico in any kind of enforcement operation.  This had to come from higher up.  I worked on or near the border for much of my career.

Fact:  The levels of governmental corruption are so deep in Mexico, that it is impossible to count any information as reliable that comes from their side of the river.

Fact:  ATF has monitored and worked on guns and ammunition going to Mexico since the early 1970s when I started work for them.

Fact: ATF's jurisdiction ends at the bridge.  U. S. Customs picks up jurisdiction at that point.

Fact: ATF's presence in Mexico was in an advisory capacity and to aid in the tracing of recovered firearms.

Fact: Guns and ammunition (illegal to most in Mexico except law enforcement and the military) have been smuggled in for as long as anyone could make a profit doing it.

Fact: The traffic in firearms is continuing at the same rate as it was before Fast and Furious started and will continue until we seal the border.

Fact: ATF did not increase the number of guns going into Mexico by having prior knowledge of straw purchase buyers.

Fact: Once the guns reached the border, all bets were off.  Information from the other side cannot be depended on.  The police on the Mexican side drive most of the nice vehicles stolen here in the U.S. and taken across.  Recovery companies often buy them from these officials when they get tired of driving them.

Fact:  Having a GPS form of tracking device would have been worthless.  These guns would have gone to Mexico regardless of what ATF did.  Identifying and stopping a few guns from heading to Mexico through straws purchasers doesn't amount to a drop in the bucket when it comes to the number of guns being trafficked.  The idea for this operation must have come from some upper level source, because no ATF agent in his right mind would have approached this.

It is sad that other agents from other U. S. agencies were killed and wounded, but again I must ask you to consider who you are dealing with for the evidence in these instances.  The FBI reported, after the operation was stopped, that some of the ones making the deliveries of straw purchased guns were FBI informants.  In typical FBI fashion they didn't bother to tell ATF.

Ask yourself these questions:

Why were ICE agents driving along a dangerous highway unescorted?  These agents also operate in an advisory capacity and don't have any law enforcement authority in Mexico.

Why did the assailants drop their weapons after the shooting?

Who found the weapons?

Who did the ballistics tests?

Who provided the bullets for these tests?

What happened to the three mopes they originally paraded before the public after the shootings purporting they were the shooters?  I haven't seen them since.

All of this information is coming from the Mexican authorities.

Possible outcome for the Obama Justice Department: Embarrass ATF and have an excuse to shift the enforcement authority to the FBI, and secondarily to show how dangerous and ineffective our current gun laws are.  Before you decide, consider your answers to these questions. Did this plan originate in the mind of Eric Holder?  I doubt it.  Did it come from the cabal controlling the puppet strings?  I think that possibility is entirely possible.

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.  -Mark Twain